At Semetis, wellbeing isn’t just about physical health or stress prevention. It’s also about how we interact, collaborate, and grow together, as people and as professionals. As part of our wellbeing policy, we’ve decided to take a deeper look at the psychosocial dynamics within the company. That means looking at how we communicate, how we work together and where tensions sometimes arise.
To support this, we’ve chosen to work with the Core Quadrant model of Daniel Ofman, a simple but powerful tool to help teams and individuals reflect on behaviour, blind spots and growth potential. This model is integrated into our risk inventory phase, helping us identify cultural patterns that affect our daily work. Because real wellbeing starts with awareness, and we believe that we can only truly grow if we’re honest about the pitfalls that come with our strengths.
What is the Core Quadrant model?
The model starts from a simple insight: every strength has a downside. If you overuse a quality, it can become a pitfall. And often, your greatest frustration with others (your “allergy”) is simply an exaggerated version of your own development challenge.
Here’s how it works:
1. Core Quality
This is a natural strength, something you’re good at without effort. Think of qualities like empathy or precision.
2. Pitfall
When you overuse your quality, it can backfire. Empathy can become overinvolvement. Precision can turn into perfectionism.
3. Challenge
This is the counterbalance: the behaviour that helps you avoid your pitfall. If you’re very direct, your challenge might be to become more tactful. If you’re very careful, your challenge might be to take more risks.
4. Allergy
This is what irritates you in others, often because it’s something you need to develop yourself. If you value calm, you may struggle with impulsiveness. If you value order, you may dislike chaos. But sometimes, that “annoying” behaviour is exactly what you could use a little more of.
Why we use it
The strength of the model is that it takes judgment out of the equation. Instead of labelling behaviour as "wrong", it invites people to understand what’s behind it, and where the opportunity for growth lies.
We’ve applied the model both at individual and team level. Every Semetissian had the chance to map out their own quadrant, in a safe and open setting. On top of that, we worked as a taskforce to define team quadrants: collective strengths that define our culture, and the risks that come with them.
The result?
We don’t just see where things go wrong. We also see why, and more importantly, what we can do about it. The model has become a shared language for feedback, reflection, and growth. Because if we want to build a strong, human organisation, we need to know what drives us, and where we tend to get stuck. That’s where change begins.
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Yaël Vanhoe